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| Monarda fistulosa or Wild Bergamot or Beebalm |
Optimizing for Beauty*
JKZ Episode #24 minute 24:00
We not merely doing this for ourselves or getting through a tough patch. And we're tapping in as best we can the infinite wells of our own creativity and imagination for how to live in a way that optimizing for beauty let's say and well-being and clarity and insight and compassion, taking care of what and who needs taking care of.
.... at the same time all flowering out of this moment, this timeless moment, underneath thought, before thinking arises, pure awareness embodied. Aware of our interconnectedness, aware of our intrinsic spatiousness that could be called selflessness, a radical act of love in the end.
Your Bergamot is Wild!*
I took these two photos at different times at Fullersburg Woods this summer. It's in the prairie section and along beds by the parking lot. I recently delete a picture that featured it along with yellow rudbeckias -- totally overgrown and lush along the sidewalk in the parking lot. What's funny about it is that I grow it in my backyard... but couldn't identify the Fullersburg species. Mine are deep red. I've seen deep purple flowers, too. This lilac color is beautiful.
It's part of the mint family, according to the internet, and can be used as a dried spice, like oregano. You can make a tea out of it, too. Elsewhere on the internet:
Monarda fistulosa, also known as wild bergamot or bee balm, has various medicinal and culinary uses. Medicinally, it's known for its antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral properties, often used to support respiratory and digestive health, as well as to treat skin infections and wounds. Culinary, the leaves and flowers can be used to add a spicy, floral flavor to salads, teas, and other dishes.
COMMON USE: Wild bergamot has been utilized by Indigenous communities for its antimicrobial and digestive properties. Infusions made from its leaves were used to alleviate colds and aid in digestion. Culinarily, the aromatic leaves and flowers of wild bergamot can be incorporated into teas, and salads, or used as a flavoring agent in recipes, providing a unique, slightly spicy, and citrusy flavor. Additionally, the herb is valued in the culinary world for its role in creating herbal teas and enhancing the flavor of certain dishes.
Check out this school of herbal medicine site about it to learn how to make tea.
Characteristics of a Helping Relationship*
From Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person, "Characteristics of a Helping Relationship"
I have come to recognize that being trustworthy does not demand that I be rigidly consistent but that I be dependably real. The term congruent is one that I have used to describe the way I would like to be. by this I mean that whatever feeling or attitude I am experiencing would be matched by my awareness of that attitude. When this is true, then I am a unified or integrated person in that moment, and hence I can be whatever I deeply am. This is a reality which I find others experience as dependable (51)
Can I act with sufficient sensitivity in the relationship that my behavior will not be perceived as a threat? The work we are beginning to do in studying the physiological concomitants of psychotherapy confirms the research by Dittes indicating how easily individuals are threatened at a physiological level. The psycho-galvanic reflex – the measure of skin conductance – takes a sharp dip when the therapist responds with some word which is just a little stronger than the client's feelings. and to a phrase such as, my you do look upset, the needle swings almost off the paper. My desire to avoid even such minor threats is not due to a hypersensitivity about my client. It is simply due to the conviction based on experience that if I can free him completely as possible from external threats, then he can begin to deal with the internal feelings and conflicts which he finds threatening within himself. (54)
Can I free him from the threat of external evaluation? Curiously enough a positive evaluation is as threatening in the long run as a negative one, since to inform someone that he is good implies that you also have the right to tell him he is bad. So I have come to feel that the more I can keep a relationship free of judgment evaluation, the more this will permit the other person to reach the point where he recognizes that the locus of evaluation, the center of responsibility, lies within himself. (54)
This has raised in my mind the strong suspicion that the optimal helping relationships are the kind of relationship created by a person who is psychologically mature. Or to put it in another way, the degree to which I can create relationships which facilitate the growth of others as separate persons is a measure of the growth I have achieved in myself. In some respects this is a disturbing thought, but is also a promising or challenging one. would indicate that if I am interested in creating helping relationships I have a fascinating lifetime job ahead of me, stretching and developing my potentialities in the direction of growth. (56)
On This Day (07/29):
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